Prince Harry jokingly threatened his brother Prince William with an 8ft long
python as they visited a nature reserve in Botswana on their first joint
Royal tour.

The Princes were invited to hold the non-venomous snake on their shoulders by game wardens at the Mokolodi Wildlife Foundation near Gaborone, and Prince Harry couldn't resist taunting his older brother when he was given the head to hold.

Sticking out his tongue to mimic the constrictor, Prince Harry, who is normally afraid of snakes, pointed it at his brother, who jerked his head back and said: “Don't put it in my face!”

As the Princes picked up the African rock python, it urinated next to Prince Williams feet. “It's peeing” he laughed. “It's obviously very relaxed.”

The Princes were visiting the 4,500 hectare reserve to see how local children learn about wildlife during week-long camps funded by Tusk Trust, the conservation charity of which Prince William is Patron.

But throughout the day neither of the brothers missed an opportunity to have a joke at the other's expense.

The snake was being shown to a group of deaf children taking part in the camp, who were shown how to avoid being injured by dangerous animals.

When staff at the reserve said they wanted to name a baby python and a common brown house snake after the Princes, William said: “Big brother gets the python, little brother gets the common brown. It's the same colour as your hair.”

Harry then picked up the common brown snake and told William: “Mine will bite you!”

The Princes were also able to stroke two14 year old cheetahs, called Duma and Lotse, in an enclosure where one of the big cats licked their hands.

Prince William told reporters: “They feel very wiry. They are not soft at all, not like fur. They lick the salt off your hands, I've seen them do it several times before.”

Asked if Prince Harry, who is known to be afraid of snakes, had coped with the python, he said: “What about me? Harry was turning it towards me!” He added that his brother had a “healthy respect” for snakes.

He said it was “great to be here”, then when he was asked how much he was enjoying working with Prince Harry, he said: “That's less so.”

Prince Harry also poked fun at the media covering the visit, turning to reporters and TV crews as he stroked one of the cheetahs and saying; “They want live meat. Any volunteers.”

Some of the deaf children from the Ramotswa Junior Secondary School spoke to the Princes through a sign language interpreter, with one seeming to momentarily upset Prince Harry when she asked a question about the late Diana Princess of Wales.

Lobopo Bimbo, 17, asked Prince William: “Is your mother alive?”

Prince Harry, 25, turned away appearing to have been caught off guard, while his older brother matter of factly replied: “No, she's dead.”

The teenager asked him: “Where do you live? Is your grandmother still alive?”

He told her: “Yes my grandmother is still alive.”

Another of the children asked the Princes if they were twins. William, 27, said: “We're wearing the same outfits but he has ginger hair.” Harry interjected: “He always wants to dress like me.”

The brothers also spoke to a group of children from the homelessness charity Centrepoint, of which Prince William is Patron, who had flown out from London to help build shelters for orphaned crocodiles and other wildlife.

William asked 18 year old Iesha Addy, who was on her first trip anywhere outside London, whether she had seen any snakes, and if she liked them. When she said yes, he replied: “You're a lot braver than me!”

Earlier, Prince Harry visited the Mophane Primary School in Gaborone where he found children had even paid tributes to his girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.

In a classroom of 6 year olds he laughed as his picked up a “television” made out of an ice cream tub on which the children had written “Chelsy Davy TV”. The Princes held it out to his aides before helping the pupils read words written on a scrolling piece of paper on the “TV screen”, which also had Prince Harry TV and Prince Charles TV on its sides.

The Princes were at the 1038 pupil school to see how children are being helped to read by the Team Read Project, a scheme which is used by thousands of primary schools in England and Wales and is now being introduced in Botswana by the British Council.

He was welcomed to the school by a group of children wearing traditional tribute costumes who performed a bushmen's Tsutsube dance and sang a song about a wedding in Sesarwa, the language of the Basarwa tribe, the countries oldest indigenous people.

Afterwards he hugged some of the dancers and thanked them for performing on the “freezing” morning.